• Humor,  lifestyles,  Sculpture

    Watering the Aspens

    Watering the Aspens
    Watering the Aspens

    Elf Lane (also known as “Gnome Road”) is mountain trail in the quaint village of Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. The trail is a quarter-mile long between Lake Hiawatha and Lake Apache.

    As you enter Elf Lane, there is a sign posted on a tree that reads: “PLEASE Do not take us, Break us, or Relocate us As We Live Here on ELF Lane to Watch over children and All the Little Animals.” As we walked the trail we found ceramic little characters; elves, gnomes, spiders, Elmo, angels, SpongeBob, SquarePants, and many more. The little character who caught my eye was busy watering the aspen tree. 🙂

  • Art/Design,  Humor,  Vision

    Within 15 Feet

    Shirts: Gotta Look Dapper
    Shirts: Gotta Look Dapper

    I read somewhere about an exercise where we needed to focus on seeing subjects within 15 feet of our bed. So on a rainy day it seemed as good a day as any and we had nice diffused light. There was more to see but three images is enough to bore you.

    Dresser Drawer Handles
    Dresser Drawer Handles

    This exercise could also be an ongoing project. Just thinking, yes I know that’s dangerous, that maybe setting aside one day a month or a week and look around my room to see what presents itself.

    Stuffed Animals: Gifts from special people
    Stuffed Animals: Gifts from special people
  • Humor,  Self-portraits

    Words of Wisdom

    Oh, that's whats' wrong.
    Oh, that’s whats’ wrong.

    Every once in a while a bad day will raise it’s silly head. Nothing seems to go right. The brain is just not running on all cylinders, randomly sputtering unintelligible words, drawing strange looks from your favorite barista. I’ll give and example. All of a sudden you face a situation where you press the shutter button on your camera and nothing happens. You make a gasp for air as if your life is about to end. Your pulse rate and blood pressure just rocketed. You look at the camera turning it around to see whats wrong and it fires. You let our a sigh of relief as you realized it was on the self-timer mode.  A photographer error. Well, I’m here to help with my words of wisdom. There are a couple of things we need to look at on those bad days.

    First, check your socks. We are now able to buy socks that are made for right and left feet. They put these little “R’s” and “L’s” on them to help. It is a known fact the day could be off kilter if those socks are on the incorrect feet. You may also notice is a slight limp, unable to keep your balance or walk in a straight line. Check it out. Second, is your shorts. Nothing can mess up the day more than having your shorts inside out. Let me tell you it happens to the best of us. A primary symptom with this is the inability to sit comfortably for any period of time. Or you could have them on backwards. You will have the same symptom with this situation. You may encounter an embarrassing time if standing in front of a public urinal. Now, if you have them both on backwards and inside out you might as well just go back to bed and start all over. Hope this helps the next time you have a bad day.

  • animals,  Humor,  natural areas

    Put it on the list

    Whitetail Buck
    Whitetail Buck

    If you look closely you will see a nice whitetail buck staring directly at you. I came upon him while he was bedded down in the trees just to the left. All I had with me was my Fujifilm X-E1 and the 18-55mm lens. It’s not the lens for reaching out to capture wildlife images. Off to the right side was his harem of 4 does. There was a time when I thought a harem was what I needed but once reality set in, those fantasies are long gone. 🙂

    Even though I’m quite happy with this camera and lens, this image reignited a wish to have more focal length than the 55mm. What I want is an image stabilized 12-400mm zoom with a variable aperture of f1.2 to f2.8 and only weight 12 ounces. I’d even settle for a cheaper, and lighter, version at a fixed f4.0. So, I’m putting it on my Christmas list, right below the new underwear. Always need new underwear. So, I guess I still have fantasies, they’ve just shifted a bit.

  • Cityscapes/Urban,  Humor

    Crap

    20140113_DSCF1090
    Straight out the camera

    I’m not sure we should ever allow an insane photographer walk unattended around the neighborhood with a new camera and freshly charged battery. Ya never know what sort of crap they’ll find. 🙂